What the CFPB ‘Commission’ Debate Is Really About | Bank Think

Corporations are happily preparing their wishlists for getting rid of consumer and employee protections under the new administration and the Republican-controlled Congress and Senate. Look for them to be disguised as “reform,” as pointed out in this piece from Adam J. Levitin in American Banker.

The financial services industry is pushing hard for Congress to change the single director Consumer Financial Protection Bureau into a multimember commission under the guise of “good government.” Let there be no mistake what this is really about: the proposal for a commission structure is a backdoor attack on the very existence of the CFPB as an agency.The financial services industry doesn’t have the courage to attack the CFPB, an immensely popular agency, directly. So instead, the strategy is to try to render it ineffective by changing it from a single-director structure to a five-member commission.